On December the 5th FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov arrived in Riga, Latvia. There he had a meeting with Mrs. Solvita Āboltiņa, Chairman of the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia, and Mr. Ivan Klementiev, Chairman of the Sports Subcommittee of the Saeima and Canoe Sprint Olympic Champion.

While showing Ilyumzhinov round the House of Saeima Mrs. Solvita Āboltiņa told him about chess in Latvia and success of the national athletes in international tournaments. Mr. Ivan Klementiev also expressed his interest in chess development in the country: "We are really interested in chess development in Latvia, and national and local authorities are ready to support chess. Chess is not so expensive sport and it helps children in intellectual development". He added that it is also planned to build a Chess Academy in Latvia. As a result of the meeting a Memorandum on chess to be included to the school curriculum of Latvia was signed. At first chess will be implemented as an additional course and then as a compulsory subject.

"Since Republic of Kalmykia, the Russian Federation implemented chess in the curriculum of schools children showed a considerable improvement in study as well as in chess performance", - said Ilyumzhinov. He added that his goal for now is to increase the amount of people who plays chess to one billion.

The meeting with Mr. Ivan Klementiev, Chairman of the Sports Subcommittee of the Saeima, was also attended by Mr. Peter Šmidre, President of the Latvian chess federation. The Chairman asked him to prepare the budget project for chess as in January the Ministry of Education of Latvia will decide on the allocation of funding for sport. 

P. Šmidre informed that after several years break Latvian chess federation is ready to organize international tournaments and that they are attracting more private sponsorship for chess development in the country.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov informed that government of several countries has already supported the idea of construction of the Chess Academies specially designed for chess promotion and tournaments organization. The architects use a chess design for the buildings. During his visit FIDE President discussed the issues of construction of a Chess Academy in Riga with its main architect, they spoke on the opening of a Chess Palace where a Chess Academy, Mikhail Tal's museum will be located and the important chess tournaments will be held in future. The FIDE President promised to visit the forthcoming Tal Memorial in February 2012 and to find some place in the FIDE Calendar for Riga to organize one of the FIDE Grand Prix Series stages.

A new chess club named after Mikhail Tal was opened these days in Riga. A well-known Grandmaster Alexei Shirov together with the FIDE Preisdent attended the opening of the club. Soon this celebrated chess player will represent Latvia in all the tournaments again.
"I hope that the FIDE President's visit and the fact that Latvian chess federation is now headed by a new President Peter Šmidre will be a new stimulus to chess development in our country," - said Alexei Shirov.

Later FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov visited the National Olympic Committee of Latvia. There he had a meeting with Mr. Aldons Vrubļevskis, President of Latvian NOC.